Strollers for transporting young children are commercially available in many styles and configurations. Strollers are normally configurable in an operative position in which the child is placed on a seat forming part of the stroller to be transported from one place to another by a caregiver pushing the stroller manually, and in a compact storage configuration in which the stroller is folded into a position in which the frame is collapsed and is unusable for the normal function of transporting young children until the stroller is returned to the operative position. These strollers can be folded from the operative configuration into the storage configuration in a number of different ways to achieve a storable size for the stroller frame.
On many current children's products provided with both seat and tray structures, a child positioned on the seat can submarine or slide beneath the tray between the seat and tray components. This ability to slide between the seat and tray can be a problem if the child cannot fully slide through this opening. Two solutions to this problem currently commercially available on such children's products, including strollers, is to either provide an opening between the seat and tray components that is large enough to allow the child's body and head to pass completely through the opening between the seat and the tray, or to create a vertical divider which spans from the tray bottom to the seat surface to prevent the child's body from entering the opening. The divider in this second solution would be wide enough to block the occupant's torso from even passing into, let alone through, the opening between the seat and tray. By blocking both the torso and head from passing through the opening between the seat and tray structures, the submarining of the child occupant is avoided.
A significant problem with the provision of a vertical divider between the seat and tray structures is that the folding of a product such as a stroller between the expanded operative configuration and the folded storage configuration is difficult to attain as the divider structure must be accommodated in the folding geometry. Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide an occupant retention structure that would prevent the passage of the child occupant of a stroller between the seat and tray structures without providing a vertical barrier that which spans from the tray bottom to the seat surface to facilitate the compact folding of the stroller into the storage configuration.
Current rear axles and associated braking mechanism used on commercially available strollers are typically composed of numerous cross bars, links and various components to interconnect the brake actuators on opposing sides of the stroller rear axle to allow the actuation of brakes on the rear wheels on both sides of the stroller, even though only one actuator has been manipulated. These cross bars, links and other components provided to attain simultaneous activation of both rear wheel brakes can complicate construction, be detrimental to the stroller aesthetics, increase the weight of a stroller and, therefore, increase cost of manufacturing the stroller.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a brake actuation apparatus that would be operable to actuate both rear wheel brakes simultaneously even though only one brake actuation lever is manipulated without providing additional cross bars, links and other related components.
The tray structure for a child's stroller is typically designed to be detachable from the stroller at one end, while mounted for rotation about the opposing end of the stroller so that the tray is not completely removable from the stroller. In such configurations, the tray can be completely removed from the stroller if the tray is disassembled, usually requiring additional tools to successfully remove the tray from the stroller. Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a tray apparatus for a stroller in which the tray was completely removable from the stroller arm rests while providing improved pivotal movement of the tray about one of the arm rests to enhance accessibility to the seat structure of the stroller.